c. 2006 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A liberal watchdog group filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday (Sept. 12) to halt government grants to a Washington state program that offers Bible-based marriage workshops.

According to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is based in Washington, D.C., the government violated the Constitution when it awarded the “fundamentalist Christian” Northwest Marriage Institute two federal grants worth $97,750 last year.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, who heads Americans United, said the lawsuit could have “important national implications because the Bush administration is promoting massive federal funding for marriage programs.”

In 2005, the federal government poured more than $2 billion into faith-based social service organizations, according to the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In addition, Congress is setting aside $500 million over the next five years to promote marriage.

Northwest Marriage Institute, based in Vancouver, Wash., received $97,750 in government grants in 2005 through the Department of Health and Human Services. Northwest Marriage has two employees and offers distinctly Christian lessons for spouses, according to Bob Whiddon Jr., a former Churches of Christ pastor who now runs the institute.

“We are a faith-based organization and we do provide faith-based counseling. … I use the Bible as my counseling manual,” Whiddon said.

But no government money was spent on Northwest Marriage Institute’s counseling programs, Whiddon said. Both the White House faith-based office and the Institute for Youth Development, an intermediary group that helps the government dispense grants, were clear about the guidelines associated with federal funding, Whiddon said.

“We haven’t done anything wrong and we have not used any money for religious activities,” Whiddon said.

Instead, Whiddon said, the government grant funded “capacity building”: The institute bought office equipment and hired a consultant and a federal-grant specialist.

But in a legal brief filed Tuesday in Washington state, Americans United said the government money was spent “directly for religious purposes: to create material with explicitly religious content, to purchase supplies used in religious programming and to pay a portion of the salaries of the employees who conduct the Bible-based counseling.”

The Department of Health and Human Services could not be reached immediately for comment on the lawsuit.

This is Americans United’s first lawsuit over federal funding, according to Joe Conn, an Americans United spokesman. The group is involved in three other lawsuits over state funding, Conn said.

In June a federal judge ruled in favor of Americans United against a state-funded prison ministry program in Iowa.

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